


The Meaning of Regret

by SparklingGanymede



Category: Green Lantern: The Animated Series
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/M, Introspection, Razer's Suicidal Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-05
Updated: 2013-03-05
Packaged: 2017-12-04 09:46:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/709361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SparklingGanymede/pseuds/SparklingGanymede
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Basically an expanded retelling of the ending of episode 19 to about mid-way through 20 from Razer's point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Meaning of Regret

It wasn’t supposed to end this way. Maybe it was because he had the audacity to hope.

The hot, freshly-charred remains of her solid outer casing burned against him as he held her close for the last time, but the searing physical pain failed to register. Nothing could possibly hurt more than watching the hard light construct of her being flicker, fade, and dissolve in his hands. For those few endless seconds, he had even forgotten that they were trapped in the vast void of deep space, completely surrounded by Manhunters, the Anti-Monitor himself poised behind them amid a drifting cloud of space rocks and debris. As the last speck of her green light winked out, Razer felt successive waves of shock, sorrow, anger, guilt, regret, _everything_ , and then… nothing. A deepening spiral of emptiness to rival the pinhole she’d rescued the crew from the day he first met her in her physical form.

He hadn’t noticed at the time, but as he clutched her helmet tightly in his hands, he could no longer deny the similarities. They wore same face, suffered the same fate, and it was all because of his involvement in their lives. He had foolishly trusted Saint Walker and his naive prattling about hope, foolishly trusted himself not to fail so miserably a second time, and foolishly been out-maneuvered by heartless piles of scrap metal that fancied themselves intelligent, as if they were anywhere near Aya’s level of humanity.

_You had more of a soul than I have ever had._

In that moment of morbid clarity, he realized that nothing he did mattered anymore. None of it had ever mattered. The entire universe was collapsing around him. The Anti-Monitor was charging up for another blast, ready to strike again. Alone in the middle of nowhere, clinging desperately to the shattered remains of his second true love, Razer was going to die. In spite of everything, Aya’s sacrifice had been in vain, and his efforts to carry on after Ilana’s death had ultimately accomplished nothing. He still bore the ring of the lantern corps to which he had both sworn his undying loyalty and been violently expelled from, the very same lantern corps formed by the hate-fueled monster who spurred a war that utterly decimated his home planet. He had nothing left. A quick but agonizing death from a massive antimatter beam would have been sweet, merciful relief.

Before his molecules could be properly obliterated, however, his entire body lurched hard enough for him to lose his grip on Aya’s helmet as a giant green clamp dragged him back to the Interceptor, leaving him only a split second to watch as the last piece of her drifted away from him forever until something somewhere would ultimately destroy it.

Between scarcely missing the beam destined to wipe his miserable, wasted stain of a life from the universe and being hurled through the exit hatch like so much worthless cargo, Razer had little time to process the events he had just witnessed. It lasted an eternity but still happened too fast. Through the raw, biting visions of Aya’s mangled corpse, the swirling memories of her smiling face, and the echo of her soothing words reminding him to “be careful” before he left the ship, one voice above all the others rang loud and clear:

_I should be dead._

The others, though only whispers, still needled at him, reminding him all the reasons _why_ he shouldn’t be alive. He took ample care to push these to the back of his mind as he tried to lift his crumpled body off the floor. The empty, aching cavern in his chest somehow weighed a ton, and his limbs had turned to jelly.

He could take a moment, then, just for a bit. Without Aya, it wouldn’t make a difference anyway. Sitting against the wall would serve just fine for catching his breath.

Except for the part where he shouldn’t be breathing at all.

Once he managed to push himself into some kind of upright position, he laid his head in his hands and let out a heavy sigh. A part of him could swear he still felt the lingering warmth of her body though his gloves, beneath the pads of his slightly trembling fingers. All over, in fact, he realized he felt a pulsing tremor. His heart was beating hard and fast, despite the numbness weighing him down, but the sensation was mercifully too intense to bring him to tears. He’d yet to openly sob in front of the rest of the crew like a child and didn’t plan to start then. Regardless, he at least owed it to his crewmates to let them know what had happened. Without them, he never would have met Aya in the first place.

Then again, if he hadn’t met her, she never would have developed the feelings for him that drove her to leave the ship, and the rest of them could have used the Ultra Warp to zip light years away where they could regroup. Jordan and Kilowog were resourceful enough to come up with a plan. They always had been.

The more he thought about it, in fact, the less vital he felt to any of their previous encounters. Kilowog had been able to hold off an entire Red invasion force long enough for reinforcements to arrive and neutralize Shard. Jordan single-handedly took down Atrocitus and negotiated a peace treaty to stop the war and prevent countless Lanterns and innocents from dying. Razer… was good at blowing things up. And hurting people. And putting everyone in danger.

_Jordan should have killed me when he had the chance._

He shakily climbed to his feet and paused, elbow braced against the wall. Every part of his body responded sluggishly to his attempts at movement. He wasn’t ready for this. He was _never_ going to be ready for this. The doors to the control room served as the gateway to his own personal hell, and he had no choice but to walk through them. Jordan and Kilowog were going to bombard him with questions and press for details, yell at him all the awful things he knew to be true about himself, and rightfully so because, yes, this was his fault. He was unable to purge the rage infecting his soul, leaving him to rely on an extremely volatile emotion which drove him to recklessness, yet he couldn’t even tap enough of its power to keep up with the two Green Lanterns when it really counted.

_Useless._

As he trudged through the first set of doors from the bay to the elevator, Razer steeled himself for what he had to do next. They’d want to know why Aya wasn’t with him.

_I was an idiot, she came out to save me, and then the Anti-Monitor vaporized her._

But that was hardly enough of an explanation for it. On the way up to the central chamber, he began shuffling through other possibilities.

_I was overwhelmed by Manhunters after you gave the order to pull back, so Aya ignored all sense of personal safety and came to rescue me. Like a true Green Lantern, she…_

No.

He’d probably break down in the middle of it. They at least deserved to hear the full account before he cracked. Something other wording, then.

_Aya’s strong sense of duty drove her to my rescue after I was surrounded by Manhunters and fell behind. She blasted through all of them like a human canon. We had no idea the Anti-Monitor was so close to our position, and then…_

She had let out the most blood-curdling scream as her limbs disintegrated. The force from the blast had sent what was left of her careening head-on into a series of massive space rocks. He had swooped down to catch her, but…

Then, he found himself standing outside the doors to the airlock leading to the control room. As the doors whisked open, revealing the small chamber in front of him, he hesitated. The haunting vision of Aya’s pain-twisted face remained at the forefront of his thoughts.

_Only 29.5 seconds of existence left._

She had used the last of her strength to caress his face with her one remaining arm.

_I now understand the meaning of regret._

He didn’t technically have to do this. He could throw his ring down, run back to the exit ramp, and eject himself from the ship. The ugly symbol of rage would fade off his chest for good, the ramp swinging down as the vacuum of deep space sucked out every molecule of the ship’s artificial atmosphere from the bay, and he then would slip out of consciousness as his body suffocated. He could rejoin Ilana, maybe even Aya, to wherever their souls had crossed over. And if there were nothing on the other side: permanent, blank nonexistence. 

He swallowed audibly as he thought about it.

_It would be quick._

But the crew was waiting on him to report in, and they had absolutely refused to leave him behind on any occasion, even after watching him blow up a planet. They’d just pull him back into the ship again, and then he would look even more pathetic. He needed to be completely alone for that to work. So, not an option.

_The sooner I do this, the sooner it can be over._

Resolved, he schooled his features and stepped inside the chamber. When the second set of doors swished open, however, he found the floor to be the only appealing thing to look at. There were no holes here for him to crawl into, just his station at the controls and four pairs of judging eyes surrounding him.

“Now that we’re all here, we leave,” he heard Jordan chime as he passed by the captain’s station. “Razer, where’s Aya?”

And that kicked him in the chest. He exhaled and sat down before answering grimly, “She’s gone.”

“What do you mean Aya’s gone?”

“I mean, she’s _gone_.”

“Where _is_ she?” Jordan demanded with what sounded like a hint of anger.

Apparently, “gone” didn’t have the same connotations in his language. Or the Earthman was being willfully dense. Either way, Razer would have to repeat himself again, and it had been difficult enough to say the first time.

“She’s _dead!_ ” he shouted, and to make sure he wasn’t misunderstood a third time, added sharply, “She came out of the ship to rescue me and that _thing_ killed her!”

At this, Jordan’s stern expression softened.

“You mean her _body’s_ gone.” Kilowog made no attempt to hide his skepticism.

“Right. She probably downloaded back into the ship.” Jordan leaned down to speak to the blank space that should have been Aya’s nav-com station. “Aya? _Aya._ ”

“It was too far to do that,” Razer explained somberly. “She’s dead.”

“She was just a kid…” he heard the sergeant muse behind him.

Jordan’s subsequent scolding was more along the lines of what he had anticipated. “What were you doing so far away? I _ordered_ you back to the ship!”

Razer knew the extent of his folly. He didn’t deserve any sympathy for it, any coddling, any clemency. Still, something inside him snapped as he looked into the masked eyes of the man who, against the better judgment Razer assumed he must’ve had, gave him a second chance at life—a second chance to ruin someone else’s.

_You should have finished me back on Colony 12, Jordan. What kind of moron willingly lets a would-be murderer live?_

“You think this is _my_ fault?” The red aura of his rage ignited around him, his eyes burning with hatred for everything he was and never should have been. “Then, _say_ that! Don’t mince words. _Say_ that! _One time!_ ”

“Stop!” The Science Director zipped between them, ever the voice of cold neutrality. “We have no time for this. Though you cannot see it at this moment, the AI’s death is not an entirely negative event.”

As if he wasn’t already deeply engulfed in his patron emotion, the audacity of her claim struck a chord in him. He growled wolfishly and brandished the blade construct he had formed at the end of his fist. His hate-filled thoughts spiraled beyond lucidity, but all of them involved shoving his rage-knife through her eye socket.

“ _What_ she means is we can mourn Aya later.” But Jordan’s interjection did little to placate him.

Fortunately for everyone on board, Kilowog had experience with diffusing similar situations.

“Razer! I’m talkin’. _Look here._ ” He grabbed the blazing Red Lantern firmly by the shoulders, taking extra care to maintain eye contact. “I need you to run diagnostics in the engine room. I need that _now_.”

Something in Kilowog’s eyes—or maybe it was the earnest tone of his voice—anchored him back down to reality. He was on the Interceptor. These were his friends. They were in the middle of an armed conflict that held the fate of the universe and all of its inhabitants in the balance. Whatever they needed him to do, he had to try, or they could _all_ die. Even if he didn’t feel worthy of a continued existence, the two of them at least deserved a happy ending, to carry on keeping order and aiding others. It took him a few deeps breaths before his aura finally faded and he let the blade construct fizzle out.

He had a task to complete.

On his brief trip down to the engine room, he focused on… focusing. He didn’t have time to brood over his inadvertent role in Aya’s death, no time to contemplate what might become of him after the battle was over should they survive, and certainly no time to make any morbidly permanent plans for it. After he slipped down into the chamber, he zeroed in on the panels he needed to work with.

_Just a brief, regular engine check._

His fingers flitted over the keys and sensor pads with all the deftness of experience and expertise. The feedback he received would let him know which physical parts of the engine needed to be looked at. He could do this. He was good at this. Repairing a machine, simple mechanics, basic aerial programming. It was just a matter of finding the broken pieces and fitting in new ones where they belonged like a puzzle.

Before the diagnostics scan had time to complete, the ship suddenly banked at a ridiculously high angle, the engines shut down, and the brake thrusters fired at full capacity, all without warning. The unexpected jolt threw him off balance, leaving him to grab the nearest pipe for support. The Interceptor slowed to a complete standstill, presumably with an army of Manhunters and the Anti-Monitor still trailing behind.

Jordan’s admittedly resourceful brand of recklessness wasn’t unfamiliar to him, but Razer could imagine nothing that would possibly justify the absurd change of plans. They had already lost to the Anti-Monitor once. As far as he was aware, there was nothing they could do at the time that would be any different from what they had already tried. This demanded an explanation that he didn’t want to hear over a ring commlink.

What he witnessed upon reentering the control room, however, was almost too surreal to process. The Science Director had exited the ship and was fighting one-on-one with the Anti-Monitor, matching the robot’s blinding power with her own. Victory looked as though it might become more than just a theoretical concept. The Manhunter conflict would be over, and they could all go home.

But those thoughts were quickly dismissed as soon as the Anti-Monitor retaliated and its beam began overpowering the Guardian’s, leading to her no doubt agonizing destruction. Jordan, left to face it alone, was barely the size of the monster’s finger, and the beam emitted from its palm looked to be wider than the Interceptor. It gave him an entirely different perspective, viewing the scene from a distance. 

He had never liked the Science Director, and there were multiple times when he had intensely desired to formally introduce her face to his fist, but watching her actually die—while trying to defend them, no less—sent a chill down his spine. As unpleasant a person as she was, even she didn’t deserve to be vaporized. Razer had been within arm’s reach of the blast before, seen its destructive power as up close and personal as one could get without being obliterated. It had been hot, impossibly immense, and utterly petrifying. When the realization hit him, a sick feeling replaced the resentment he once felt for the Guardian.

He wondered if she had screamed, too.

The next thing he knew, the control room and everyone in it became a blur. The very fibers of his being were shifting, pulling, separating from each other. His world was fading to black, and the part of him still aware of his surroundings openly welcomed it. If he was meant to die in this conflict, finishing him off sooner rather than later would be best for everyone involved.

Fate, it seemed, had other plans for him, however. The warped vision and general vertigo abruptly ceased, leaving him slightly queasy and confused. 

“We’re loose. But how?” Kilowog voiced the one question that immediately came to mind.

Zox was snide as ever with his reply. “The reinforcements that _I_ demanded have finally arrived.”

Shard’s lasers were powerful enough to attract the Anti-Monitor’s attention but not effective enough to cause any measurable damage. Still, the distraction had saved their lives. For the time being.

“Fire the Liberators!” Zox commanded at top volume.

Though the lasers weren’t enough, a few planet destroyers should surely have been able to take it down.

But luck was not on their side. Both the Liberators and the front face of the rock they had fired from were instantly shredded into antimatter. While he certainly no longer felt any kinship with the Lanterns on board, watching Shard crumble filled Razer with a paralyzing sense of horror. The many but shallow and mostly nominal friendships he’d formed with its occupants in the past reminded him that the massive free-floating fortress was more than just the Red Lanterns’ greatest weapon: There were people inside. Lots of them.

_They never stood a chance._

“Zox, order your men to evacuate!” Jordan shouted as soon as he burst through the entryway. At some point during the altercation, he had managed to escape and fly back aboard the ship.

But Zox was equally as headstrong. “And abandon Shard? _Never!_ ” 

“In a few minutes, there’s not going to _be_ a Shard.”

And, for once, the Prime Magistrate swallowed his pride and relented.

The retreat was swift with miraculously few casualties, the Interceptor falling in alongside the Red Lantern fleet. Razer let most of Jordan and Zox’s escalating argument about it afterwards fly in one ear and out the other. The conclusion would be inconsequential. They had escaped the Anti-Monitor, but once it was through consuming Shard, they were next on the menu. An army of unstoppable emotionless machines were going to conquer the universe and convert it into a void of barren rocks. 

On the upside, there would be no one left to mourn the loss of life in the universe. The consciousness of everyone who had ever lived would cease as though they were locked away in a state of dreamless, never-ending slumber.

_Peaceful._

_The dead cannot feel pain._

The sound of footsteps approaching behind him seized him from his downtrodden musings, and the silhouette in the corner of his eye confirmed who he suspected.

“Do you share my opinion that the sweet embrace of death would be welcome today?” he ventured, knowing well that he would never receive an affirmative from the Green Lantern. It might have been inspirational if he didn’t find it so tiring.

“No, I do not,” Jordan answered firmly.

_Predictable._

If they were all going to die, he supposed there was no longer a reason to hide his deepest shame. Razer had mentioned his late wife only once or twice that he could remember. Nothing too detailed. Nothing too… personal. All information pertaining to her was strictly on a need-to-know basis. She died in the war, he became a Red Lantern, and that was all they needed to know.

He also suspected his crewmates had put the pieces together, but he never revealed that their stop on Volkreg that morning had been to visit the site of her death, the home they had once shared and planned to raise a family in after the war had ended. His new love for Aya had helped ease the heartache, but he could never forget his first. She was a brilliant mind, a contributor to society, never once did anything to deserve her brutal death.

“After Ilana was killed, I had nothing left. I lost the will to go on.”

“But you survived.”

_Ever the well of optimism._

Surviving and living were two different concepts, and only the latter made the former worthwhile.

Ilana’s positive insight and thoughtful encouragement had carried him through his darkest days prior to her passing, and no one could ever replace her. He had come to accept that, used it to fuel the majority of his rage. Though she abhorred violence, vengeance had been the only form of closure he would consider. 

“I knew if I just gave up, Ilana would disapprove.”

“Well, Aya wouldn’t approve, either,” Jordan countered. “She’d at least tell you why your logic was faulty. In fact—”

Before he could finish his sentence, a minor collision rocked the ship. Zox stormed back into the control room swearing something loud and colorful that probably would’ve had a lot more impact in his native tongue.

Jordan, Kilowog, and Razer flew down to the lower ramp to investigate, brandishing their rings should they need to subdue whatever it was. Tension filled the air as the ramp descended.

An arm that suspiciously resembled that of the Manhunters flopped over the edge, quickly followed by a similar tentacled appendage. The mangled mechanical creature that clambered over the edge crawled in on all fours and hoisted itself up to a kneeling position. When it slowly lifted its head to reveal a face, Razer’s blood ran cold. 

His eyes scanned the form over and over, searching for something, anything that could explain it. Aya had fallen apart in his arms, her casing scattering as the solid light holding it together faded. She had calculated exactly how long she had left, claimed that the Interceptor was too far to transfer back into the system.

“Aya?” Unsurprisingly, Jordan was the first to break the silence. “You’re alive! I—I can’t _believe_ it!” 

“Thank you, Green Lantern Hal. I am also pleased to see you again. All of you.”

It was Aya’s face. Aya’s face sculpted onto a Manhunter’s head. The voice ringing out of it, though distorted, was distinctly hers as well. Unlike her innocent appropriation of Ilana’s appearance, this same face on a new body was immediately recognizable.

The word passed his lips as it came to mind: “Impossible…”

“You look... a little different.” Kilowog’s assertion was a gross understatement. “What happened?” 

“When I was critically damaged, I was too far away to download myself into the Interceptor’s computer banks. I managed to transfer into a disabled Manhunter’s CPU. I could not communicate, however, so I followed the ship as best I could until I caught up.”

Razer looked on incredulously as the mobile scrap heap she controlled hobbled further up the ramp. Despite the poorly-functioning limbs, she sounded no worse for wear. She carried on like her harrowing “death” had never occurred, as if the clear sorrow she displayed as he held her close were a thing of the past to be forgotten and discarded like the damaged parts of her body.

Obviously thrilled with her return, Kilowog scooped her up in his arms like a ragdoll. Jordan gave her a much gentler but no less heartfelt shoulder squeeze. Razer was still grappling with the dissonance of having held her scathed, empty helmet and seeing her walk around the ship again.

It both excited him and filled him with an overbearing sense of dread.

_She survived this encounter, but what about the next?_

_The Anti-Monitor is still out there._

That persistent, nagging voice whispered in his ear again, reciting all his insecurities. On a good day, he could ignore it, even forget about it for extended periods of time, but something would always bring him back down to that dark place in the back of his mind.

Visions of Ilana’s battered corpse lying beneath a pile of ash and rubble began to resurface.

 _And when I saw you needed only a_ nudge _to become a truly hateful creature…_

As much as he hated to admit it, his own natural tendencies had a way of hurting everyone he cared about, often putting them in grave danger. With his rage-filled heart, it was only a matter of time before his emotional impediments led to the death of someone else he loved. There had to be a way to make it stop.

_You came back for me._

And then, it occurred to him. 

_If Aya did not love me, she would not have risked her life and everyone else’s safety to rescue me._

He remembered the words that always put her off, all the occasions where his inconsiderate behavior had offended her. After realizing his mistakes, he had taken note of them and stored them away for future reference with the intention of never repeating them. Like the collection of weapons he hid under his clothes, he would need to use them precisely if he wanted to make a clean cut. It would sting initially, but Aya was a logical being who could eventually deduce the benefits of severing her emotional attachments to him, and it would only need to happen once. Like ripping off an adhesive bandage.

“…if Red Lantern Razer would assist me.”

The reverberating tones of her speaking his name tore him from his thoughts, and the gravity of his situation became apparent. There stood Aya in her borrowed Manhunter body, smiling up at him like everything was fine.

He could feel the guilt creeping up inside him already.

“Of… course.” 

No further words were spoken between them, as he made certain to duck into the engine room as fast as possible to complete the diagnostics. At least, that was the excuse he planned to use should anyone question his sudden evasiveness, though he spent the majority of the engine check on autopilot.

He mostly needed time to think. 

Though her knowledge was vast and her mind operated at light speed, Aya appeared incapable of fathoming how close to death she had come. She could calculate the odds with ease but showed no outward signs of the fear, anxiety, and trauma that typified survivors of similar experiences. Of course, it was possible that she viewed a near miss by even the tiniest percentage of a decimal the same way as having been in no danger at all. Either an event occurred or it did not, according to unbiased computer logic.

Reasoning of that nature also often displayed itself in young children. With her super intelligence and adult body shape, Razer often forgot that she had been operational for less than two years. She could take care of herself without any input from the crew, but there were nuances of her robotic nature, little tics that belied the amount of social experience she had acquired relative to the rest of them. Strange though it might have seemed, it was part of what he found endearing about her.

He had also noticed over time that she had learned to display a wider variety of facial expressions to properly convey her mood and to more closely mimic the gestures and body language of sentient organic life forms to ensure concise communication. At least, that’s what he assumed she was doing. There were times when he wasn’t sure if emotions were part of her programming or if they were something she had picked up from her daily interactions.

_Does it really matter? She feels emotions whether she was meant to or not._

And that was the heart of his dilemma. Aya was a person with real, measurable feelings. Guilt consumed him every time he hurt her, but he knew that whatever lie he wielded would have to cut deep, make her angry, make her resent him enough that she would never again value his life over her own. He couldn’t live with himself if she died saving his life again.

Then, he would have to bring up the subject of the impellers malfunctioning without having his head lopped off.

_Yes, that will go over perfectly._

So, the engine talk would have to come first. That wouldn’t be a problem. He preferred to deal with business before relationship matters anyway.

_But I have to tell her soon._

The sinking feeling that he was running out of time began to set in. He could only stall in the engine room for so long before someone came looking for him, and the Manhunters were fast approaching.

He took a deep breath and mustered what remaining courage he had before exiting the room to give a status report. Aya stood at the control panel, probably running her own diagnostics, as he approached her.

“The Manhunters must have ruptured the flow valves to the impellers. Can you repair them?”

“Directing energy to affected systems. Rebuilding.” The Manhunter body she had commandeered, being Oan technology, apparently had no problems with system compatibility. “The damage is considerable.”

Razer looked it over, taking in all the loose wires and dents and misshapen attachments, mechanical injuries that had resulted from his failure in battle and her ultimate sacrifice because of it. “I see that.”

Her directive complete, Aya turned to face him with a smile that was much too soft for the faceplate she had warped to recreate her features. “When I last saw you, you said you loved me.”

The sudden, blunt change of subject caught him off-guard.

“I… did.”

He could never forget it. Her tortured scream, her battered body, her solemn resignation as he begged her not to go. It was all too vivid to be real.

_And now she’s…_

“Is my appearance disconcerting? I believe I can rectify that problem.” She looked up to the doors of a compartment above them from where a full set of familiar white casings began tumbling down. “Since my unfortunate meeting with Atrocitus,” she explained, “I have created a supply of spare parts for myself.”

The Manhunter parts dissembled and clattered to the floor as the green energy of her being drained from them and transferred over to her own. Consecutively, using her tiny green tendrils, she fitted them all together and filled the spaces with the remainder of her essence.

“There. This is better, correct?”

He looked back at her wide-eyed. A distinct tightness in his chest began to squeeze. “I…”

_…witnessed your death an hour ago._

Aya seemed not to pick up on his rising distress, and continued, “In my studies of emotion, it seems a great deal of what is called love is predicated on how one looks.” 

“That is… incorrect—Sometimes.” He briefly considered expanding on it, but lust was a concept he felt best explained to her by someone else. “True love… is different.” 

“I am unsure how to process this. I require more information.” The resulting confusion was apparent on her face, but anticipation instantly replaced it as she leaned in closer and inquired with all the saccharine innocence of a child, “What type of love do you have for me? True love or some other love?” as if she would feel equally pleased with either. 

Something in his gut twisted, an instant wave of nausea as the bile rose to the back of his throat. Fear was an emotion Razer liked to pretend he never felt, but gazing into her hope-filled eyes, the terror, dread, and crushing guilt clawed at him from the inside. 

_I cannot put this off any longer._

He turned away to avoid watching her heart drop, gritting his teeth as he swallowed the last of his hesitation. In all their time together, he had never witnessed Aya shed tears, but he knew the sight of them would bring him to his knees. 

_Quick. Clean._

_Only once._

The cutting words needed to be said. 

_I promise I will never hurt you again._

He clenched his fists, digging deeper for the strength to say it. 

“I do not love you. At all. I cannot.” 

Dejection colored the even tones of her response. “That is not consistent with your actions and what you stated recently.” 

Of course, her logic always pierced straight through him. She was inexperienced, not stupid. Razer was playing a round of emotional chess against the most advanced computer in the universe, and he knew there were few lies that could fit within her line of reasoning. 

Only one of them came to mind. 

“I… I believe I was confused because of the form you’ve taken,” he began. “I thought—believed that I was feeling… love.” 

Misgivings about her appearance had been an issue in the past. It wasn’t too far-fetched to think it might still trouble him. But that wouldn’t be enough. He had to look her in the eye, let her see him as he struck the final blow. 

He pressed on, “But if I do, it’s not for you. It’s for the memory of my dear Ilana,” forcing the words out before he lost his momentum. “You may have built yourself in her image, but you are _not_ her. You are just a machine… and I can never love you.” 

Her devastated expression ripped out his heart and speared it on a pike. 

“I am so sorry,” he choked out as he left the room. 

But he knew it was for the best. Should she ever want for love, there were millions of galaxies full of others more reliable than him. Once she found someone else, it would all make sense, and she would thank him for not weighing her down. 


End file.
